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Fine water particles tickled Laesonar's nose as he stared at the waterfall flowing down the abyss below him. The ground underneath the riverbed had opened, creating a gorge that was swallowing up all of the water from the river. To Laesonar's left, after the gorge, the former riverbed, now completely dried up. To his right, at his side, Armin was adjusting his cloak on his shoulders. He turned towards Laesonar as the half-elf spoke to him.

"So, master Paladin, why are we looking at this?"

Armin wasn't too sure whether that question was ironic.

"We wanted to investigate why the river stopped flowing into the lake, remember?"

"Oh right. Right."

The paladin smiled and huddled up in his cloak, observing the waterfall.

"This is weird enough, as they told us. It really doesn't seem the result of a normal earthquake and..." He gave a start, as the half-elf at his side suddenly screamed.

"You can come out of those bushes, old man, we know you're there!"

Armin turned around and looked where his mate was looking.

An old man, indeed, with a weird gaze, came out of some bushes, on the other side of the riverbed.

The man looked fixedly at Laesonar, who stared back at him. Armin was confused.

"Laesonar, what..."

They kept looking at each other's eyes, intensely. Armin noticed and fell silent.

After a while, the old man moved his arms and the ground trembled.

The earth shook violently and Armin struggled to keep his balance as new soil surfaced, completely filling up the gorge where the water was disappearing into. In the blink of an eye, the river started to flow back into its original riverbed.

The old man then turned on his feet and peacefully walked away.

Rather perplexed, the two warriors watched him disappearing into the bushes.

Armin looked at the half-elf, longing for an explanation.

"He is an earth-bender."

"A... what?"

"Well, some sort of wizard, he said."

"He said? When?!"

"I heard his voice in my mind."

"......" Armin was speechless. He wanted to ask whether...

"Well that was easy enough, master Paladin. Let us return to Laelariel, shall we?" Laesonar moved and turned back. Still a little confused, Armin smiled, then joined him on the way home.

I guess I went a bit ambitious here, as I wanted to portrait a very particular moment and I'm afraid one cannot quite get what's going on, unless they read the story.. Oh well, I wanted to build this for aaages! Let the water finally flow back to Laelariel and Lake Laendir! One thing I do regret, is that I wanted that river to be much bigger, to be consistent with the Avalonian map.. unfortunately that's the extent of my trans-clear 1x1 round as well as 1x2 plates..

I also wanted to try out this type of palette, which I initially chosed because I wanted to use light yellow in the river bed to simulate a sand - turned out, it didn't look that good on RB, so I took it off Finally, I wanted to try my hand for the first time at a snotted base, mixed with stud-up plates, on the right hand side - I'm kind of pleased with how it turned out, though I've got a long way to go.

As for photography... oh well... No seriously, this is the first attempt at following @Basiliscus's advice, who is patiently baby-sitting me (luv ya mate!) - I started with lowering the ISO and found out I need better lamps, which will hopefully come in January. So that's the best I could get for now and it's still grainy when zooming in as well as a bit blurred here and there... BUT I promise I'm working on it! Actually, just to try and prove this to @Henjin_Quilones and for everyone else to have a laugh and/or go for a facepalm, I've decided to include a pic (spoiler below) of my upside-down room during the pics-taking phase

All C&C most welcome as usual - thanks for reading!

Spoiler

Edited January 16 by en_zoo

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Great irregular base, and I think you nailed the water effect! On the other hand the stalks just laying around don't convey the earthquake feel IMHO. Also, the dry part of the riverbed could use tiles to give the impression of more dried earth, or mud. Great work though! I would also say the dialogue is great, except apparently a lot of it happened in their minds .

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Great irregular base, and I think you nailed the water effect! On the other hand the stalks just laying around don't convey the earthquake feel IMHO. Also, the dry part of the riverbed could use tiles to give the impression of more dried earth, or mud. Great work though! I would also say the dialogue is great, except apparently a lot of it happened in their minds .

haha yes, I didn't want the dialog to be too long , but thank, J., good to hear about the water effect - I wasn't quite that convinced. Good point about the missing tiles, I'll have to keep it in mind for next time.

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Interesting build, interesting story, and acceptable photography. The surging mass of water is done really well! The twigs riding the wave instantly add a sense of motion! Your SNOT experiment is very succesful I'd say, I even wish you would have done it for the left side as well, so that the river bed would be easier distinguished from the rest of the ground. I do agree that the loose stalks are not the most convincing. Overall I think the vegetation could have been a little denser, but the plants by themself look good. The story is a bit bizarre, quirky, unpredictable.. I liked it!

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Nice landscaping here, especially in terms of color. The full scene is a beast so next time, don't be afraid to put that up front!

thanks McC, I'll keep in mind!

On 12/20/2018 at 9:04 AM, Basiliscus said:

Very nice work! Love the water flowing effect, it looks really natural. I also laughed out loud when I saw the facial expressions of Laesonar and Armin in the final shot, it's perfect!

The photography looks a lot better than previously, the extra light has helped. Once you get the diffuse lights then the shadows on the white background on the first two shots should be reduced.

Good work!

Thank Bas, glad you like the water - I wasn't too sure I managed to make it looks like it was flowing forward. And yes, as I mentioned, waiting for January to see if I can get the lighting to work even better.. can't wait really

On 12/21/2018 at 1:45 PM, Exetrius said:

Interesting build, interesting story, and acceptable photography. The surging mass of water is done really well! The twigs riding the wave instantly add a sense of motion! Your SNOT experiment is very succesful I'd say, I even wish you would have done it for the left side as well, so that the river bed would be easier distinguished from the rest of the ground. I do agree that the loose stalks are not the most convincing. Overall I think the vegetation could have been a little denser, but the plants by themself look good. The story is a bit bizarre, quirky, unpredictable.. I liked it!

Keep up the good work!

Hey, good to hear from you, Ex! I'm afraid that's the extent of my grass stalks in olive green, but good to know you appreciate the water as well as that SNOTted part - good point about the other side actually, it didn't occur to me! Glad you enjoyed the story too - speaking of which, haven't read about your 39th mage for a while... would love to!

On 12/22/2018 at 1:45 AM, Muakhah said:

Nice rushing water and the ground either side of it is suitable barren. I love the expressions on laesonar and Armin, they are very good.

An earth bender you say?

Glad to hear that the water will soon return. Hopefully the town will be able to pick itself up again.

Thank you, Muakhah, I'm glad you're reading the story along! You can't imagine how relieved I am to have got the water flowing back, for the sake of the town - I've wanted to do that for ages! So, there was this cartoon that came out a while back called 'Avatar, the Last Airbender' - ever heard? If you check it out long enough, you'll see earthbenders too and you'll get the idea I had in mind for this build right away. [the cartoon it's also kind of fantasy and it inspired things like this - just a quick example. There were also a couple of original LEGO sets with this theme, though unfortunately not very good ones IMO..] If you do check it out, do let me know!

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Glad﻿ you enjoyed the story too - speaking of which, haven't read about your 39th mage﻿ for a while... would love to! ﻿﻿﻿

Yes, it's been far too long! This year I've been in the sci-fi mood for most of the time. I'm starting to get back into building medieval fantasy stuff, but I'll be trying to handle some unfinished business of my guild before fully committing to my personal saga again.

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@en_zoo Avatar the last air bender was excellent stuff. I would recommend it to anyone of any age. Fun characters with real growth and development. Actual thought gone into how the “magic” for want of a better word, happens. Funny moments and the occasional tear jerker. Might rewatch it soon actually.

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@en_zoo Avatar the last air bender was excellent stuff. I would recommend it to anyone of any age. Fun characters with real growth and development. Actual thought gone into how the “magic” for want of a better word, happens. Funny moments and the occasional tear jerker. Might rewatch it soon actually.

Great show. Korra stumbles a bit but is also super good and more socially relevant IMO.

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Yes, it's been far too long! This year I've been in the sci-fi mood for most of the time. I'm starting to get back into building medieval fantasy stuff, but I'll be trying to handle some unfinished business of my guild before fully committing to my personal saga again.

oh that means some Nocty stuff?? I would be awesome! ... or have you changed guild while I wasn't around?

On 12/23/2018 at 4:49 PM, Muakhah said:

@en_zoo Avatar the last air bender was excellent stuff. I would recommend it to anyone of any age. Fun characters with real growth and development. Actual thought gone into how the “magic” for want of a better word, happens. Funny moments and the occasional tear jerker. Might rewatch it soon actually.

Oh so you knew it! With your question there, I thought you didn't know about it...

On 12/24/2018 at 9:29 PM, Rogue Angel said:

Nice build and landscaping work. I like the story and the water starting to flow back into the riverbed.

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I love the water technique here, as it perfectly captures the look of surging water. Great job with that! The small trees are also nice, especially in the muted dark orange color. In fact, all of your colors look good together here. I think continuing the SNOT base on the left would have been good, though it does not look bad as it is, and perhaps some extra work on the dried stream bed to differentiate it from the rest of the ground a bit more would have been good, but as it is, I do like it. I also love the idea of having benders in Historica, so I hope you keep that going. I do a lot with elemental divisions with my dragons, and each has a special ability to manipulate their particular element, so it would be cool to see that happening elsewhere. Good work!

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I love the water technique here, as it perfectly captures the look of surging water. Great job with that! The small trees are also nice, especially in the muted dark orange color. In fact, all of your colors look good together here. I think continuing the SNOT base on the left would have been good, though it does not look bad as it is, and perhaps some extra work on the dried stream bed to differentiate it from the rest of the ground a bit more would have been good, but as it is, I do like it. I also love the idea of having benders in Historica, so I hope you keep that going. I do a lot with elemental divisions with my dragons, and each has a special ability to manipulate their particular element, so it would be cool to see that happening elsewhere. Good work!

thanks, HQ! I wanted to use light yellow in the riverbed only but at the end didn't like it and took it off.. As for benders, I actually hadn't planned to keep it going, but you've opened a new sphere of possibilities with your comment (and your dragones..!). Who knows..

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I also love the idea of having benders in Historica, so I hope you keep that going. I do a lot with elemental divisions with my dragons, and each has a special ability to manipulate their ﻿particular element, so it would be cool to see that happening elsewhere.﻿

This reminds me that I still have to work out/update my 'theory of magics' in Historica... so much to do.

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This is a great build. Love the colors, juxtaposing the various browns against the olive, and the trees look great. Enjoying the story as well! My only suggestion would be to give it a bit more lighting for photography. It seems slightly underexposed and a bit grainy for it to me. Great job, though, and I look forward to more!

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This reminds me that I still have to work out/update my 'theory of magics' in Historica... so much to do.

oh man, I remember you mentioning that a while back! would be awesome!

On 1/5/2019 at 6:43 PM, Grover said:

This is a great build. Love the colors, juxtaposing the various browns against the olive, and the trees look great. Enjoying the story as well! My only suggestion would be to give it a bit more lighting for photography. It seems slightly underexposed and a bit grainy for it to me. Great job, though, and I look forward to more!

Thank you Grover, I'm glad you follow up on the story! And yes, giving it more light is my next step regarding the photography aspect - fingers crossed!